Old Ghosts
by Seraina
Summary: Fiddleford McGucket raised his hands and curled in on himself like a cornered prey animal. Stan immediately lowered the bat, frowning at the old man. "Fiddleford, what are you doing in here? It's the middle of the night." Spoilers for "Not What He Seems". Part of my Evil Twin Series.


**Old Ghosts**

**Author's Note**: Part of my Evil Twin series. Set after "The Time Traveler's Pig" but has spoilers up until "Not What He Seems". You don't have to read "Close (But no Cigar)" but it might help.

_"It scares me so, like I scare myself_

_With that book of Nostradamus up upon my shelf"_

\- My Evil Twin by They Might Be Giants

"Go to bed or keep it down!" Stan half-heartedly yelled towards the attic where two kids and a pig were still causing a ruckus despite it being well after bedtime. It was summer and he was sure they'd tire out long before he went to bed. He eased himself back into his chair and propped up his foot up on the milk crate he brought from the kitchen. His knee was acting up again; he must have re-injured it in the dunk tank. It was a small price to pay for all the money the carnival brought in.

A noise from the gift shop made him half-rise from his chair. He held his breath and the sound of glass breaking made him grab the baseball bat he kept around just to scare off rowdy teenagers that thought they could put one over on "Mr. Mystery". Stan cast a quick glance up the stairs towards the attic then limped into the gift shop.

A lone figure hunched over an expire jar of pre-wrapped jerky-like sticks. Stan quietly reached for the light switch with one hand, keeping the bat in the other. "Gotcha!" He switched the lights on and raised the bat to attack.

Fiddleford McGucket raised his hands and curled in on himself like a cornered prey animal. Stan immediately lowered the bat, frowning at the old man. "Fiddleford, what are you doing in here? It's the middle of the night."

"I… um… I was just…" the town kook started hesitantly, then seemed to focus his eyes on his surroundings. "Lee… I don't know where I am."

Stan winced at the nickname that only three people in the world knew and helped his brother's old friend up off the floor. "You're at the Mystery Shack, Fid. Are you hungry? There's food leftover from the carnival."

"I don't… reckon I remember the last time I've properly eaten." Stan had no trouble leading the shorter man to the kitchen. This wasn't the first of Fiddleford's frighteningly lucid moments, but Stan was going to do his best to make it as bearable as he could.

"Ham and swiss with mustard, right?" Stan rooted around in the fridge for what he remembered was the other man's favorite sandwich from another lifetime. When he heard no answer, he continued anyway.

"Lee?"

Stan paused and turned to see Fiddleford staring at the damaged cast on his right arm. "Yeah Fid?" He couldn't help but feel a cold well of dread in the pit of his stomach.

"How did… how did we get so… old?"

Stan turned back and assembled two sandwiches and sat down across from "Old Man" McGucket. "It snuck up on both of us, Fid." Stan remembered kicking over a rack of postcards when he realized he needed real glasses instead of the ones he used to become Stanford. Then he agonized the fact that Ford probably hadn't aged any since he leapt into the portal. Then he panicked nearly every night that he would run out of time before he could find Ford. He knew there were certain… bargains that could be made, but that's what got them into this whole mess in the first place.

While he was lost in his thoughts, Fiddleford ate both sandwiches and was once again staring at him. "I'm sorry for almost blowing your cover there… Stan."

Stan nodded and rubbed his knee. "It's alright, Fid. I don't think anyone would notice much if you started calling me by the wrong name." It was hard to imagine that this was once a brilliant young engineer that could build just about anything out of old scrap. Oh, he still built things, but they were strange mechanical wonders that just seemed to add to the strangeness of this town.

Fiddleford was quiet for a long moment, so Stan limped over to the fridge to retrieve two sodas. "I'm sorry, Stan"

"What're you sorry for, Fid?" Stan set a can of peach soda in front of each of them. "You've already apologized and I've already forgiven you."

"About the car." Fiddleford shifted in the chair, hunching over himself, seeming to disappear into his massive beard.

Stan froze. "You... cut the break line?" His voice shook and he felt the need to grip the table… whether or not it was to keep upright or to prevent himself from throttling the lunatic. Thirty years ago, his car had a flat tire, so he took his brother's car out that morning to get some essentials. Without the ability to stop, he lost control of the car, flipped over and landed in a ditch. Stan barely made it out of the car before it exploded, leaving just a metal husk in the brush for authorities to find. He hobbled on a busted leg and torn ACL through the woods and was found along the highway and taken to a hospital. A week later, he woke up to find that he'd been declared dead and then mistaken for his brother. When he finally returned home, the place was in shambles and Fiddleford was next to useless, babbling about the portal and a cipher. It took hours to find out that the portal was turned on and Ford had rushed inside. But why? That was the question.

He used his brother's name and contacts to try to restore the portal, forcing Fiddleford to help him until the man mentally broke. Then he'd continued on his own and would keep on until he either died or found his brother.

"Why? Why did you do it?"

"I… hmm… um…" The unstable man formed his fingers into a triangle shape around his eye. "No interference. You would have stopped him. He saw you in the portal and… ran in. But… it wasn't you."

Oh he'd met Bill Cipher several times over the years. That demon had its hands in so much chaos; of course it had been the cause of this mess. If that evil triangle had possessed Fiddleford to mess with the cars and then made it so that Ford would be unable to resist entering the mysterious portal… then it was going to be a very dead demon the next time they met.

"Pines? What in tarnation am I doing here?"

Stan sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. Lucidity didn't last long. "Come on McGucket. You need a ride back to the scrapyard?"

"Nah! I'll just git!" Fiddleford let out a manic cackle and did a backflip off the kitchen chair, then ran out the side door.

Stan stood up and limped towards the gift shop, punching in the secret code to access the lab. Once the elevator lurched to a stop, he stepped out and sat down at the console. He opened a drawer and pulled out a battered photo and propped it against the framed picture of Mabel and Dipper.

Two sets of twins smiled at him even though he felt like the room was filled with old ghosts. He was an old ghost, dead for thirty years and haunting the place as a pale shadow of his brother. He reached for an old bottle of scotch tucked in the back of the desk, but stopped himself. He was better than that. Stanford Pines was better.

He sighed and stood up and headed back to the kitchen. He didn't have it in him to work tonight, so instead he grabbed a pint of ice cream, a bag of lima beans (for his sore knee) and sat down to watch the late night showing of The Voyages of Loinclothiclese.


End file.
